Monday, April 26, 2010

I dislike Tri-care with a passion aka the broken toe saga

A week ago today, DJ's and my feet collided. My right foot/pinky toe, and his right foot with his cowboy boot.

I felt the crunch and about cried, but was able to walk so I thought I would be ok.

That night I looked at my toe and had an ugly bruise, and thought, yup I broke it.

Tuesday morning I tried to get an appointment on base to be seen, and of course they didn't have any available, so I waited til after school and went to the Med Stop.

The doctor at the Med Stop told me that it looked like a broken bone, but the radiologist would have to make the final call, and would call me the next day and let me know.

Wednesday, I didn't get a phone call until about 6 pm, which was too late to call Tricare. The Med Stop nurse said I had a "broken blankety blank" bone and I needed to go to the orthopedic surgeon. (I am guessing that the blankety blank bone is not as simple as a bone in my pinky toe since I am being told to go to the orthopedic surgeon.) The nurse said if we had any insurance other than Tri-care she could have gotten the referral for me, but since it was Tri-care I had to do it myself.

Thursday morning right away I call the base clinic to get my referral to be seen by ortho (there are none on base here, so don't break a bone around here unless you want this run around!) After being put through to 4 different people (push 1 if you want to make an appointment, push 2 if you want .... Only to discover that the button you push isn't the right one after all, and only to have that person put you through to another wrong person) I finally get ahold of a person that can help me request the referral. They have me call the Med Stop and request that the Med Stop fax the information over to the base.
The lady at the Med Stop calls me back about an hour later and says that the fax keeps rejecting the number that Tricare gave me. So I call Jerry and ask him to run up to the Med Stop and get the paperwork, to take it to the base clinic for me.
Jerry does this, only for the Tricare woman to call me back and say that the Med Stop gave him the wrong paperwork. By which point I was livid, and told the referral lady someone needed to figure it out since I lived and worked 25 miles from base, and had already done my part, just because they are not communicating clearly with the Med Stop was not my fault. So she called the Med Stop. Who supposedly took until 5 pm to send the correct paperwork via fax.

Friday I call to find out about the referral only to be told that it was no longer considered a stat case since it had been 5 days since the injury, and that I would have to wait until I got the paperwork in the mail to schedule an appointment with the orthopedic surgery. However she told me that I could call early in the week to see if they would give me the approval number before I got the letter.

Today I call to find out the status and am told that the referral was still under review, and that it would probably be another 2 to 3 days before it was approved.

Well to say that I lost it is an understatment. I let that gal have it. Basically I told her that I have had to walk around on a broken bone in my toe/foot that obviously the radiologist thinks is a big deal since he has said I am to go be seen by a surgeon, and now they are telling me I have to wait another 2-3 days to even schedule the appointment?

Well that got her attention, and she called someone and got them to approve the refferal for me to go in and be seen.

My appointment is on Wednesday, and I am going to cry if the orthopedic person laughs and wants to know why they had me come in to be seen for a broken bone in my toe.

But my toe is still swollen, and it still hurts to walk on that foot, or even put any pressure on that toe (including changing out the tape). So we shall see.

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